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Death of Florida Teen Spurs Outcry and Action

Michael Appleton for The New York TimesSybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, the parents of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., joined a protest in Union Square in New York on Wednesday.

Last Updated | 10:50 a.m. Thursday Outrage over the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, 17, in central Florida continued to grow across the country on Wednesday, with at least two thousand people rallying Wednesday night in New York City and Miami. Civil rights leaders are planning more demonstrations in other cities in the coming days, including a rally Thursday night in Sanford, Fla.

Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, parents of Trayvon, who was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, addressed the huge crowd in Union Square for what was billed as a “Million Hoodie March,” a reference to the hooded sweatshirt that Trayvon was wearing when he was shot.

“We’re not going to stop until we get justice for Travyon,” Mr. Martin told the crowd. “George Zimmerman took Trayvon’s life for nothing.” He added, “My son did not deserve to die.”

Speaking in a voice laden with emotion, Ms. Fulton said, “My heart is in pain, but to see the support of all of you really makes a difference.” She said her son was not committing any crimes.

“Our son is your son,” she said. “This is not about a black-and-white thing. This is about a right-and-wrong thing.”

Tim Pool, an independent video journalist, captured the rally on video and continued to share live reports into early Thursday morning as the rally broke up into at least three different marches, with some people heading downtown while others headed north toward the United Nations building.

Meanwhile, as our colleague Lizette Alvarez reports, the Sanford City Commission voted 3-to-2 on Wednesday night that it had “no confidence” in Bill Lee Jr., the Sanford police chief. Local residents and civil rights leaders complained that Chief Lee had not arrested Mr. Zimmerman, 28, who shot Trayvon, who was unarmed, while he was walking home from a convenience store.

City Manager Norton N. Bonaparte Jr. did not say what steps he would take regarding Chief Lee’s future. He released a statement that included a question-and-answer section with Chief Lee.

“Although the Police Department is the target of the troubling questions, let me assure you we too feel the pain of this senseless tragedy that has dramatically affected our community,” Mr. Bonaparte said in the statement. “Therefore, as we move forward and strive to answer the questions that are a point of controversy in the community, we ask for your patience, understanding and assistance in getting the correct information to the community.”

Mr. Zimmerman told the police that he shot Trayvon in self-defense. He has not been charged.

New questions about the Feb. 26 shooting surfaced late last week after law enforcement officials released 911 police tapes that cast doubt on the official police account that Mr. Zimmerman had been acting in self-defense when he shot Trayvon.

After Mr. Zimmerman called the police to express his suspicions about Trayvon, who was walking in his gated community wearing a hooded sweatshirt, he disregarded a police dispatcher’s instruction not to follow the teenager. Cries for help were also heard on 911 tapes of calls made by neighbors when the struggle began.

Mr. Zimmerman told the police that the cries were his. Trayvon’s mother said the voice belonged to her son in the moments before he was killed.

The release of the 911 tapes prompted a huge online furor that is now leading to protests in the streets.

In New York, a group used Twitter and Facebook to help organize a march that drew a racially diverse crowd, made up of young and old, to Union Square on Wednesday night.

Other marches were planned in cities like Oakland, Calif.; Milwaukee; Washington; Chicago; and Norfolk, Va., according to a Facebook page.

Earlier on Wednesday, Trayvon’s parents appeared on “The Today Show” on NBC, where they called for Mr. Zimmerman’s arrest.

They also discussed an affidavit that Trayvon’s 16-year-old girlfriend gave the family’s lawyer. She was on a cellphone, records show, just before the shooting. She told the lawyer that she had been talking to Trayvon and that he was worried that he was being followed. She said a man asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood before she heard him being pushed and she lost the connection.

In the interview, Mr. Martin also said he was upset about an obscenity and a racial epithet that Mr. Zimmerman, who is white and Hispanic, can be heard mumbling in a barely audible voice on the 911 tape, before the dispatcher tells him not to follow the teenager.

The remarks on the tape fueled an angry conversation on social media platforms, with many people pointing to Mr. Zimmerman’s comments as evidence that racial bias was a factor in the shooting.

The Sanford Police Department acknowledged missing the remark on the day after the United States Justice Department weighed in on the case, and the state attorney convened a grand jury to investigate the shooting.

Chief Lee told The South Florida Sun Sentinel last week that the investigation was “based on the facts and circumstances, not color.” He said, “I know I can say that until I am blue in the face, but as a white man in a uniform, I know it doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”

Since the release of the tapes, the shooting has prompted a huge conversation on social media, with thousands of mentions of the hashtag #trayvonmartin on Twitter. Hundreds of people responded to a Facebook request to post a photograph of themselves wearing hoodies on Facebook and on Twitter, using the hashtag #millionhoodies.

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